Friday, May 14, 2010

Crab Enchiladas con Chile Amarillo, for Mother's Day and the May Daring Cooks' Challenge

The May 2010 Daring Cooks' Challenge was to create enchiladas. Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Food chose a delicious Stacked Green Chile and Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce was found on http://www.finecooking.com/ and written by Robb Walsh.

For this challenge, we were not required to use the chosen recipe. We were encouraged, but not required, to make homemade tortillas, and we were free to make any homemade Mexican-style sauce, as long as it was challenging and daring, such as mole or a tomato-based sauce. We were also given the liberty of using something other than chicken in the enchilada filling.

Although I do have several pounds of roasted Hatch green chiles in my freezer, and absolutely love their flavor, Mark's recipe for Crab Enchiladas with a blackened yellow tomato sauce was too intriguing to pass up. It also appeared to be a lighter, healthier, version of enchiladas - better for those of us who are frantically trying to get "summer ready." The succulent crab filling, with lump crab, red and yellow bell peppers, roasted corn, serrano chile, and fresh herbs, is gently rolled inside delicate homemade crepes flavored with fresh corn kernels and green chile powder. The enchiladas are baked briefly, placed on top of a pool of blackened yellow tomato sauce, and garnished with a small mound of pickled carrot, jicama and pineapple slaw. For our first course, I served Yellow Summer Squash Soup with Red Chile Crema, also from Mark's cookbook. The colors in this dish are so vibrant!

Puree the milk and corn together in a blender and strain through a sieve into a mixing bowl.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the flour, chile powder, and salt. Cream in the butter and mix in the egg. Add the water and the corn-milk mixture and mix until all lumps are eliminated.

Heat a crepe pan and brush pan with vegetable oil. Ladle in enough batter to make a thin crepe and cook over medium-high heat for about 30 seconds per side, until lightly browned. Repeat for remaining batter (8 crepes), stacking the cooked crepes between parchment or waxed paper to keep them from sticking together.

Heat the oil in a saute pan and saute the garlic and ginger over high heat for 2 minutes, being careful not to brown the mixture.

Yransfer to a blender and add the tomatoes, water, salt, and hot sauce. Blend until just combined and textured, rather than smooth. Add the basil and pulse to incorporate.

Transfer to a bowl, cover, and refrigerate until needed.

Warm before serving.

Assembly, Baking and Plating

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Butter a baking dish with the remaining tablespoon of unsalted butter

Divide the crab filling between the crepes, roll up, and place in baking dish.

Bake for about 8 minutes.

To serve, ladle about 1/2 cup of the rewarmed, roasted yellow tomato sauce onto each plate. Place two crepes on top of the sauce, and garnish with a small mound of slaw.

While writing this post, I started craving the wonderful heat and flavor of New Mexico Hatch green chiles and decided to go for Round Two. I stopped for some tomatillos and chicken breasts, defrosted a package of those roasted Hatch chiles I mentioned earlier, and whipped up Fine Cooking's Stacked Green Chile and Chicken Enchiladas. You can find the recipe, here.

Many of the Daring Cooks were unable to find fresh tomatillos, but it wasn't a problem here in San Diego.

I used Queso Anejo Enchilado cheese, one of John's favorites, instead of Monterey Jack, and garnished the stack with a little leftover Carrot-Jicama Slaw.

Oh my, memories of Santa Fe! These chiles pack the heat and flavor like no other!

Thank you, Barbara and Anna, for hosting this month's Challenge! Please visit The Daring Kitchen for all of the Challenge recipes, and take a stroll through the Daring Cooks' Blogroll to see what some of the other daring members created this month!

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You may be interested in these recipes from Mark Miller's Tacos and Indian Market Cookbooks...

While reading about the crab recipe I had to stop and get something to eat it made me literally hungry it sounds so delicious I will be making it very soon this weekend for a BBQ and both version are so tasty sounding. Bravo on your fabulous efforts and results. Lovely photos as always. Cheers from Audax in Sydney Australia.